SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (142 page)

“You should have told me.”

Question answered.

“We already covered that yesterday,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, and I told you we weren’t nearly done. Damn it, Cassie, I missed her whole life.” He shook his head in disgust. “This morning, she talked to me like I was a stranger.”

“You are.”

“And whose fault is that?”

I pushed up and out of the chair and faced him on my own two feet. “Mine, okay? It’s all my fault. I was sixteen and I chose to keep my kid and not tell you. And then later, I didn’t tell you because you were married and for all I knew,
happy.”

“I still would have wanted to know about her.”

“I know!” Disgusted myself now, I added, “I should’ve told you. Happy?”

“No.”

“Well,” I sighed, temper gone, drained away by a vast need for caffeine, “if it helps, she’s not speaking to me.”

“Thanks,” he said as he followed me into the kitchen. “It does help.”

“Look,” I told him, pulling an extra coffee cup out of the cupboard and filling it for him, “I’m willing to work this out, because I’m a fabulous human being, but I’m only going to listen to you being mad for so long.”

“About sixteen years?” he asked, a reluctant smile curving one corner of his mouth.

“Ha-ha,” I said and handed him his coffee. “One more time, Logan. I was a kid. And pregnant, okay?”

He leaned back against the counter, holding the cup between his palms. “If I’d known, it would have been different,” he said. “Cassie, you wrote to me all that year and you never even mentioned it.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, taking a huge gulp of coffee, “like you never mentioned that you were dating Skippy.”

“Misty.”

“Whatever.” I set my cup down, walked to the service porch and Logan was only a step or two behind me. While I stuffed a load of towels—Thea used two for every shower, one for her hair, one for her body and took two showers a day, you do the math—Logan leaned against the dryer, watching me.

To be honest, he gave good stare.

He made me so jumpy, I dumped enough soap in to wash five loads and hoped that wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass. Then I slammed the lid and looked up at him. Well over six feet, it took awhile to lift my gaze all the way to his eyes, but it was worth the trip.

“What do you want from me, Logan?”

He blew out a breath, crossed his feet at the ankle and said, “Another shot.”

“At what?”

“You.”

Whoa Baby!

“I mean,” he said, reaching out to skim his fingers along my bare forearm (and I felt the goosebumps jumping up to shout hello), “you’re not seeing anyone.”

“And you know this how?” I asked, trying to keep from shivering as the
tingle, tingle, tingle
rocketed through me straight down to a hoo-hah screaming for some action.

“Because you would have thrown him at me by now.”

“Hmm. Good point.”

He straightened up and leaned into me, pushing my hair back behind my ear. “I’m back, Cassie and this time I’m not leaving.”

Breathe, BREATHE, dammit. Okay, now I was calm.

“I can’t get involved with you, Logan.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because...” Come on, Cass, where’s that nimble brain when you really need it? Where are all the great lies that tumble from your mouth every time you’re in a tight spot? Finally, I just blurted, “Because we had a kid together.”

He laughed and both black eyebrows went up. “That’s your reason?”

“Well, yeah,” I said, warming up to it as the seconds ticked past. “Thea would be horrified. You don’t want to blow anything with her, do you?”

Logan frowned thoughtfully for a long minute. “Okay, maybe it is a little soon.”

“Good. Better.” Nodding, I felt like I’d gotten myself out of that one smoothly enough. Of course, then I realized that I’d just talked my way out of a possible orgasm and that was depressing as hell.

“So we won’t tell her,” Logan said.

“Huh?”

Logan dipped his head to mine and came so close to kissing me, I automatically leaned in, licking my lips in eagerness. Then he dropped both hands to my shoulders and smiled. “You know,” he said, “maybe you’re right. Don’t want to rush into anything.”

When I caught the gleam of amusement in his eyes, I practically snarled at him. “You rotten bastard.” My lips were going to be disappointed. Hell, they’d get used to it. My hoo-hah had. “You did that on purpose.”

“What?” He feigned innocence but I wasn’t fooled. I had seen that look on his face before, right before he said, “Trust me. You won’t get pregnant the first time we do it.”

I may learn slow, but eventually I wise up.

Grabbing a fistful of his flannel shirt, I dragged him through the house to the front door. Sugar barked and leaped around us, trying to play. Logan was still laughing when I pushed him through the screen door to the porch.

Then, as the laughter faded, he grabbed my hand before I could slam and lock the door.

“Okay, Cassie,” he said, trying for solemn and apologetic, “so it wasn’t funny.”

“You think?”

“But come on. I owed you. You hid my
kid
from me.”

My heart felt like it was dropping into my stomach. Ick. “That’s what this is all about for you, Logan?” I asked, watching his eyes, “payback?”

“No.” His blue eyes met mine straight on, no games, no laughter, no jokes. “You really threw me, Cassie. Seeing Thea. Being home again. Being with you...it’s a lot.”

That I could understand, because, hey, it was a lot for me, too. “Yeah, it is.”

And as we stared at each other, I thought wildly, okay, this might be all right. We can be grownups about this. It’ll be fine. We’ll work it out and everything will be good.

Then he spoke up again, popping that balloon for me.

“I’ve got to get to the station now, but Cassie?” He reached up, cupped my cheek with one hand and stroked his thumb across my cheek. “We’re not done. I’ve got plenty of questions for you. And I’m gonna want answers.”

Well, crap.

More than Fiends: Chapter Seven

An hour later, Jasmine arrived and suddenly I felt like there wasn’t enough coffee in the world to turn me into a superhero.

That afternoon, I knew that if a real live demon actually showed up, I was dead meat.

After three hours of ‘training’ with Jasmine, I was covered in grass stains, my favorite jeans had a rip in the knee, not to mention blood stains from where my knee was cut from the rock I fell on. I’d broken two nails and there was actual
sweat
rolling down my back. I don’t do sweat. I have an allergy to exercise of any kind and to the sweating kind in particular.

I’ve got nothing against nice slow walks to the bakery or even running—if there’s a purse sale at Nordie’s. But there was just something inherently wrong in actually
trying
to sweat.

We buy deodorants to
keep
from sweating and then go on a run? I don’t think so.

I was too tired to crawl into the house, so I stretched out on the sun warmed grass in the back yard. No point worrying about more grass stains or mud now, right?

“You did well for your first day.”

I pried one eye open and glared at the old woman looking down at me. She was backlit by too much sunlight, so she looked like she was standing in a halo. Big lie. If anything she should have had horns and a tail. The woman was evil.

Plus, she looked the exact same as she had when she’d walked into my kitchen that morning. Her blue hair was still sprayed tightly to her skull, looking like a fuzzy swim cap, her dress hadn’t wrinkled and she wasn’t even out of breath.

I’m 32, she’s 200 and I’m the dead one.

That’s fair.

And humiliating, sort of.

“Just kill me now,” I muttered and then went OOMPH as Sugar landed her entire body across my stomach. The dog was confused. She wasn’t used to seeing mommy move around so much. She’d probably need therapy. Get in line.

“We will continue this tomorrow.”

“No we won’t,” I managed to say, closing my eye because I didn’t want to die with one eye open, looking like I was winking at the grim reaper. “I’ve got a business to run. A kid to embarrass. A life to—“ she got the idea.

“This is more important.”

“That’s what you think. But, since Thea and I both like to eat, I’m going to have to go with the work thing.”

God, I didn’t want to think about moving let alone working. But until I hired more help, it was just me and Carmen to handle our customers. God. Made me tired just thinking about it. Was it too late to be born independently wealthy?

“You’ve accepted your destiny.”

“Not willingly.”

“You’ve agreed to kill demons.”

I lifted one hand. Briefly. “I’ve agreed to spray ‘em.”

She’d already explained that ugly ass liquid in the spray bottle. Seems its some ancient, secret recipe, that affects demon skin like acid. Ew. Which meant of course that Leo, my surly appliance delivery guy, was actually a
demon
. Crabby, I knew. Bald, fat and lazy, I knew. But
demon
? No wonder he ran like a bat outta hell.

Once sprayed and identified, Jasmine said demons must be killed.

“Won’t the acid do it?” I asked. “It’d sure as hell do it for me.”

She huffed. “The acid would of course, kill them if you
dunked
them in the solution. A spray will only help you identify them. And in some cases, it may weaken them.”

“So what? I’m supposed to walk around squirting perfect strangers?” I rocked my head back and forth in a No-Freaking-Way signal. “I can’t do that. I’ll get arrested or something.”

She talked right over me. “Once they’ve been identified, you must destroy them.”

“How’m I supposed to do that? Exactly.”

“It’s quite simple really,” Jasmine said, folding her hands neatly at her waist. “You simply reach into their chests and remove their hearts.”

Bells clanged in my head, my stomach lurched and raced up my throat and I had to swallow hard to push it back down into place. “I reach into their what and remove their huh?”

“Chest. Heart.”

“No. Way.”

Could my life get any weirder? Where was a time machine when you needed one? I’d go back two days and leave town before either Jasmine or Logan could show up. I’d take Thea and we’d go somewhere exotic. Europe maybe. Or Canada. Somewhere where nobody wanted to make me reach into somebody’s chest and rip their hearts out.

Jesus...

“It must be done.”

“Not by me. I wear rubber gloves to hold a
toilet brush,
” I said. “Don’t get me wrong. I mean, I’m all for dead demons. Go, demon death!” I waved an imaginary pom-pom to show my enthusiasm. “But no
freaking
way am I going to shove my hand into some
thing’s
chest. Hello? Unsanitary much?”

Jasmine looked for a minute like she wanted to kick me and I would have had to let her since I was still too tired to move. But the moment passed and I guess she decided to go for strained patience instead.

“You’re in training,” she said reasonably.

“Apparently.” CRAMP. Cramp in my right leg. God, help me move my leg—or if not, send a lightning bolt.

Now would be good.

I desperately rubbed at the pain and AH, it receded from Morphine-needed-here to Motrin level. I might live. I looked up at my tidy gray nemesis and said, “I’m willing to jump and leap and in general beat myself up for the cause—and if you knew me better, you’d realize just how big a concession that is—but I gotta draw the line and tearing hearts out. Ew.”

Jasmine sighed. She’d chased me around the damn yard, made me jump and crouch and fight shadows all morning without a comment and
now
she sighs?

“We will resume your training tomorrow after you finish work.”

“And we will never discuss ripping out hearts again,” I added, just to make sure she understood I hadn’t changed my mind about that.

Shaking her head, she walked around me and I heard her footsteps headed for the house. Probably going inside to get her butt ugly purse. Then she paused. “You
are
a demon duster and you
will
do your duty.”

“Right.” As long as it didn’t involve chest punching. I would have said anything to get her to leave. Boy, as soon as Gram got back from her cruise, we were going to have a showdown.

Sugar’s hot dog breath was fanning my face and I felt her drool soaking into my tee shirt. And I just couldn’t care.

Superhero?

Me?

The world was in deep shit.

* * *

After a shower I climbed into clean clothes and felt almost ready to take up my real life.

When the phone rang, it was Carmen Mendoza, my one remaining employee, a tiny woman with a will of iron and a never ending supply of clichés.

“I wanted you to know that I have hired my cousin Rosario.”

“Okaaaayyy...”

“I have told you,” Carmen said patiently, in the tone she used on her ten year old son, “my cousins are dependable, not like those college girls who are fly by nights.”

First cliché of the conversation.

“I promise, no more college girls.”

“Enough said about that, then,” Carmen said with a victorious sniff.

I like to think I’m in charge of my own business, but actually, it’s Carmen who runs everything. At least, that’s how she sees it. And since my only other employee had only just quit, who was I to argue with Rosario being hired? At least I knew she wouldn’t up and quit. Carmen would kill her if she tried.

“We have taken care of the Johnson’s, and the Nelson’s and the Toledo’s wanted to put cleaning off until tomorrow,” Carmen said, catching my attention again.

Guilt pinged around inside me like an insane pinball going TILT. “Hey, you guys don’t have to do it all. I can get out to the Toledo’s in the morning and do that one myself,” I said, pouring another cup of coffee.

“No need,” Carmen said, then added, “You would be rushed and haste makes waste.”

Cliché number two.

“I have told Rosario that she is not to be late again or I will tell you to fire her.”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling, because Carmen hadn’t even bothered to have me hire Rosario. Why would she come to me to fire her? “I’m a beast.”